CoreWeave Beats Third-Quarter Estimates and Raises 2026 Outlook as Backlog Hits $132.5 Billion

CoreWeave reported third-quarter revenue of $3.66 billion on Tuesday, up 168% from a year earlier and above the $3.55 billion analysts expected. The AI cloud provider also raised its full-year forecast and gave investors a detailed plan for paying for its buildout.

The adjusted loss came to 95 cents a share, narrower than the $1.16 loss analysts had forecast. On a GAAP basis, the net loss widened to $709 million, or $1.27 a share, from $110 million a year earlier. Operating income rose to $207 million from $52 million, and adjusted operating income reached $379 million, a 10% margin.

CoreWeave now expects full-year 2026 revenue of $13.0 billion to $13.3 billion, up from $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion in its August forecast. It expects adjusted operating income of $1.275 billion to $1.375 billion, up from $960 million to $1.15 billion. The midpoint of the new operating income forecast is 26% higher than the old one. Analysts had expected $12.86 billion in revenue and $1.07 billion in adjusted operating income. The company also lifted its target for annualized run-rate revenue at the end of the year to $20 billion to $21 billion.

Paying for the buildout

The report landed after a hard stretch for the stock, which had lost more than 40% of its value over the prior month as investors rotated out of AI infrastructure names and some CoreWeave bond yields topped 16%, according to CNBC. Shares rose in premarket trading Wednesday and were up 10.8% as of 5:08 a.m. ET, according to CNBC.

Finance chief Nitin Agrawal told analysts on the earnings call that the company does not plan to issue more parent-level unsecured debt at current yields through 2027. He said the market for secured debt tied to assets has stayed stable, with its loans trading around par value. He projected less than $5 billion in added parent-level capital through 2027 and said CoreWeave plans to raise new debt tied to a set of customer contracts in the coming weeks.

Chief executive Michael Intrator said most of the capital needed through 2027 will come from delayed-draw loans tied to customer contracts, customer prepayments and financing from hardware partners, with only a limited amount raised at the parent company level. The company said it expects about $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits over the next three months. During the quarter it sold about $4.2 billion of convertible senior notes in an upsized offering.

Spending keeps rising with the order book. CoreWeave now expects 2026 capital expenditures of $37 billion to $39 billion, after lifting the low end of its earlier $35 billion to $39 billion range. Third-quarter capital spending reached $14.5 billion, and net interest expense climbed to $846 million from $310 million a year earlier. The company guided fourth-quarter interest expense to $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion.

Backlog keeps growing

Revenue backlog reached about $132.5 billion at the end of September, up from roughly $104 billion at the end of June. Active power passed 1.7 gigawatts after the company added more than 200 megawatts in the quarter, double its footprint at the start of the year. Contracted power grew to more than 4.6 gigawatts. The company still targets more than 1.85 gigawatts of active power by year end.

New customers in the quarter included Canva, Substack and Wayve. The company also expanded work with OpenAI, Perplexity, Jane Street and Cohere. Anthropic, one of its customers, is scheduled to start trading on the Nasdaq next week after setting its IPO price range.

“This was a breakout quarter for CoreWeave, with revenue increasing by more than $1 billion sequentially and adjusted operating margins reaching double digits a quarter ahead of plan,” Intrator said.

JPMorgan credit analyst Thomas Egan wrote in a note Wednesday that the report should calm nerves in the AI market. “You could almost hear the sigh of relief in the AI market as CRWV posted a solid results that extended the margin story that took hold last quarter,” Egan wrote, according to CNBC.

Reporting based on coverage by WebProNews and Benzinga.